The Celt in all his variants from Builth to Ballyhoo, <br />His mental processes are plain--one knows what he will do, <br />And can logically predicate his finish by his start; <br />But the English--ah, the English!--they are quite a race apart. <br /> <br />Their psychology is bovine, their outlook crude and raw. <br />They abandon vital matters to be tickled with a straw; <br />But the straw that they were tickled with-the chaff that they were fed with-- <br />They convert into a weaver's beam to break their foeman's head with. <br /> <br />For undemocratic reasons and for motives not of State, <br />They arrive at their conclusions--largely inarticulate. <br />Being void of self-expression they confide their views to none; <br />But sometimes in a smoking-room, one learns why things were done. <br /> <br />Yes, sometimes in a smoking-room, through clouds of "Ers" an "Ums," <br />Obliquely and by inference, illumination comes, <br />On some step that they have taken, or some action they approve <br />Embellished with the argot of the Upper Fourth Remove. <br /> <br />In telegraphic sentences half nodded to their friends, <br />They hint a matter's inwardness--and there the matter ends. <br />And while the Celt is talking from Valencia to Kirkwall, <br />The English--ah, the English!--don't say anything at all.<br /><br />Rudyard Kipling<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-puzzler/
